The continued proliferation of digital content items has led to an increase in the availability of such content items, as well as an increase in the availability of electronic devices and applications used for providing these content items. For instance, users read text-based content items, such as electronic books (eBooks), magazines, newspapers, documents, or other textual content on an assortment of electronic devices.
Many of the electronic devices and applications for consuming the content items provide additional user selectable features and content not typically available in a print version. These features are frequently enabled in response to user selection of a portion of the text displayed on the electronic device. Often the electronic device is equipped with applications for consuming the content items, as well as, applications for assisting the user in selecting whole words or sentences. However, automated text selection becomes difficult when text of a content item is in a language in which word or segment boundaries are not clear.